Timeline Building Discussion: Results of Trotsky ruled USSR

So, I want to make this more of a conversational thread than a traditional timeline. I'm thinking that the PoD is to have Leon Trotsky to defeat Josef Stalin for rulership of the Soviet Union after Lenin and what the results of that would be worldwide for the next decades.

A Trotskyist Soviet Union would never give up the Global Revolution. Without the Great Purge, and along with Trotsky's own military prowess, the veteran generals of the Soviet Union would likely spend the early years of Trotsky's reign to be preparing for an invasion of Eastern Europe.

Imagine the invasion beginning in '33 or so. With the Great Depression in full swing, I doubt there would be any material support or military action taken by the Western powers.

What do you think the specifics of the PoD that could put Trotsky on top, the specifics of Trotsky's regime, or that of the invasions might look like? How would this affect the West? How would fascism develop differently (if differently at all)? With Stalinism either subdued or butterflied, how would this change the communist parties and movements across the globe?

I'm going to try to write up a summary of the discussion and the agreed upon events and put it below in this first comment to make it easy for people to get into whatever discussion develops.

There are no poor contributions, if you have something to say, go for it.
 
Trotsky was not some lunatic adventurer - he wouldn't invade Eastern Europe, as he knows that would provoke a united pan-European anti-communist crusade against the USSR.

I've stated before, while the theory of Permanent Revolution is opposed to Socialism in One Country, it doesn't mean that Trotsky was dumb enough to invade a swathe of neighbouring countries, which he knows is likely to provoke a grand coalition against Bolshevism. He knows the Soviet Union is a pariah. In fact, during the interwar period Trotsky advocated that the Comintern should be encouraging foreign Communist parties to adopt United Front tactics (not Stalin's bullshit "Anti-Social Fascism Position"), that is to ally with other leftist/progressive movements (e.g. Social Democrats) in their home countries to oppose fascism (not communism being imposed at the tip of Soviet bayonets with a foreign invasion). Trotsky also denounced Stalinist autarky, and instead encouraged trade and technological exchanges with the advanced Western capitalist countries.

While Stalin (and to a lesser extent Zinoviev) are alive, it is extremely difficult for Trotsky to take power, as both of them were significant obstacles and much better political schemers (moreso the former). The best way for Trotsky to take power is for Stalin and Zinoviev to die during the Russian Civil War, and then for Lenin to live longer (possibly due to avoiding getting hit by Fanny Kaplan's bullets). Yes Trotsky was extremely arrogant and had a knack for alienating peers because of it, but he was also basically the co-leader of the Bolshevik coup and all the other contenders - Stalin, Zinoviev and Bukharin - identified him as the main threat and banded together against him. It took their combined efforts and Stalin's unparalleled Machiavellianism to take him down. So without Stalin and Zinoviev as key obstacles against him, and with the backing of Lenin, I think Trotsky has a very good shot at leadership.

However, I don't see Trotsky ever wielding the kind of absolute power like Stalin had IOTL. Soviet leadership under Trotsky would be far more collegiate and collectivist - rule by committees and troikas - rather than a single totalitarian absolute dictator like under Stalinism, simply because Trotsky has neither the inclination nor the sheer political skill to become a totalitarian dictator.

With the lack of Stalin and Zinoviev, opposition to Lenin and Trotsky in the Party would coalesce around the Worker's Opposition of Kollontai and the Right Opposition of Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky (and both factions have far less clout and political ability than Stalin). Also, a longer-lived Lenin would be able to thoroughly pave the way for Trotsky to be his official successor, but with checks and balances.

So lets say Stalin and Zinoviev die in the RCW, and Fanny Kaplan's bullets miss Lenin during her assassination attempt, so Lenin lives a few years longer and dies in the 1930s after officially anointing Trotsky his successor. But the Soviet Union comes under a committee-style of leadership where Trotsky is only first among equals

Here are the main differences between OTL's Stalinism and Trotsky as leader of the Soviet Union:

- No Stalinist Great Purge or Moscow Show Trials. Some Bolsheviks who still disagree too vehemently with the Party-line after it has been agreed via Democratic Centralism would be forced into retirement (or even imprisoned or exiled), but the ban on factions would be lifted and there would no mass killings within the Party, Soviet government or Red Army.

- However, the Red Terror would continue against "counterrevolutionary reactionaries" outside the Party.

- Most of the gulag camps and slave labor system would be gradually phased out, but a few would continue to exist for "enemies of the people" and some forced labour would be utilised. However, mass deportations (especially of entire ethnic groups) would not occur.

- A much more restrained Cult of Personality than Stalin's IOTL one probably occurs, focused on the duarchy of Lenin-Trotsky and the latter as the former's heir. Marxist-Leninism (ironically also known as Trotskyism ITTL) is probably codified.

- Centrally planned industrialization and agricultural collectivization would be implemented, but not with Stalin's sheer level of incompetence/bungling, zig-zagging, unpreparedness and targeted racism against Ukrainians, so millions won't die in a Holodomor and brutal slave labor. Industrialisation is also more effective with Trotsky encouraging trade and technology/skill swaps with the Western world, rather than Stalinist autarky.

- The Red Army would be less professionalized than under Stalinism, and would instead be more like the "people's militia model" advocated by Trotsky IOTL. The Red Army may be weaker in some respects, but would still receive heavy investment and be vastly better off overall without the Great Purge and Stalin's bungling (Trotsky was the father of the Red Army and a skilled military man - the "Red Napoleon").

- No Socialism in One Country. The Soviet Union would continue to be ideologically committed to internationalist proletarianism, global working-class solidarity, and worldwide revolution. Trotsky would tone down advocating permanent revolution in Europe though, as he knows that will provoke an anti-communist crusade against the Soviet Union and the failed revolutions in Germany, Hungary, etc, proves that Europe "isn't ready". However, the Comintern would not be purged, neutered and abolished like happened IOTL under Stalinism; instead foreign communist parties would receive strong support, but more scope for independent action, from Moscow. The Internationale would remain the Soviet Union's national anthem.

- Trotsky would encourage European communist parties to form anti-fascist Popular/United Fronts with progressive, anarchist, and social democratic parties and cooperate with them against fascism (i.e. no Stalinist haranguing of "social fascism"). The Spanish Republicans and the KPD will be much better off for it.

- Trotsky would neglect communist/anti-colonial movements in the Third World, and will focus on the urban proletariat instead of the much more numerous peasantry. This isn't much different from interwar Soviet policy in the Third World from IOTL though.

- However, Trotsky would probably encourage the Chinese Communists to disengage from the united front with the Kuomintang and instead maintain their independence, including retaining an independent armed militia. This may save the Chinese Communists from Chiang Kai-Shek's 1927 Shanghai purge. But, Trotsky would not approve of Maoist theories on peasant revolution.

- No Russification. Ethnic minorities and the SSRs within the Soviet Union would have more autonomy than under Stalinism, and would not have Russian culture/language forced on them. No ethnically targeted, racist annihilation campaigns like Stalin's Polish Operation, Korean Operation, mass deportations of minorities, etc.

- State Atheism and anti-clerical persecution would continue, and there would be no de-facto alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church like under Stalinism.

- The Party would try and stamp out anti-Semitism instead of encouraging it like Stalin did IOTL, so no Doctor's Plot/"rootless cosmopolitanism", and skilled Jewish immigration to the Soviet Union would be encouraged. Many socialist-leaning Jews may end up fleeing to the friendly Soviet Union as refugees from fascism.

- There is no way in hell that Trotsky is ever trusting of pacts with fascist powers like Nazi Germany, especially intensely anti-Semitic dictators like Hitler (who would hate the Jewish Trotsky with a passion). So the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact never happens. Trotsky wouldn't be as gullible as Stalin either - he would expect the fascists to attack the Soviet Union, and prepare accordingly.
 
- No Russification. Ethnic minorities and the SSRs within the Soviet Union would have more autonomy than under Stalinism, and would not have Russian culture/language forced on them. No ethnically targeted, racist annihilation campaigns like Stalin's Polish Operation, Korean Operation, mass deportations of minorities, etc.
So what language would exactly be used as the means of inter-ethnic communication within this USSR? Esperanto?
Also it's misleading to say that the Communists in OTL were imposing Russian culture on other ethnicities, since they were pretty busy destroying traditional Russian culture. It would be more accurate to say that they invented a Soviet culture and imposed it on all groups.

- Centrally planned industrialization and agricultural collectivization would be implemented, but not with Stalin's sheer level of incompetence/bungling, zig-zagging, unpreparedness and targeted racism against Ukrainians, so millions won't die in a Holodomor and brutal slave labor. Industrialisation is also more effective with Trotsky encouraging trade and technology/skill swaps with the Western world, rather than Stalinist autarky.
Calling the Great Famine of 1932-33 targeted racism against Ukraine is at best misleading, considering that it affected all major grain growing areas, of which Ukraine was the biggest.
And it is deeply misleading to claim that Stalin's USSR was not engaged with trade and technology exchange with the West. It's far more likely that Trotsky would find it difficult to attract foreign investment with his continued calls for Revolution.

- State Atheism and anti-clerical persecution would continue, and there would be no de-facto alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church like under Stalinism.
There was no such thing. The Russian Orthodox Church was prosecuted with great zeal under Stalin, including during the Great purge. What happened was that some partial tolerance was shown to the church during WWII but society remained officially atheistic and the activities of the church remained significantly restricted.

- The Party would try and stamp out anti-Semitism instead of encouraging it like Stalin did IOTL, so no Doctor's Plot/"rootless cosmopolitanism", and skilled Jewish immigration to the Soviet Union would be encouraged. Many socialist-leaning Jews may end up fleeing to the friendly Soviet Union as refugees from fascism.
Keep in mind that Stalin's USSR was also stamping out anti-Semism for the first three decades of its existence. And many Jews did flee to the USSR between 1939 and 1941.
 
Centrally planned industrialization and agricultural collectivization would be implemented, but not with Stalin's sheer level of incompetence/bungling, zig-zagging, unpreparedness

And how is Trotsky any different?


and targeted racism against Ukrainians, so millions won't die in a Holodomor and brutal slave labor.

As unfortunate as the famine was, administrative incompetence is not necessarily targeted racism.


Industrialisation is also more effective with Trotsky encouraging trade and technology/skill swaps with the Western world, rather than Stalinist autarky.

That explains all the turnkey factories that Stalin bought, which were the backbone of the Soviet War Machine.

You think that Trotsky would be able to negotiate with his kind of self-satisfied boasts of intellect?
 
@Dementor

Yes Russian would still be the lingua franca of the USSR, but Stalin's Russification campaigns would not be imposed by Trotsky.

I do believe the Holodomor was a targeted racialist campaign against Ukrainians, on top of the other mass deaths from Stalinist administrative bungling during collectivisation.

Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution does not mean continuously trying to incite revolutions in foreign countries. And he wrote repeatedly about the need to establish good trading relations with the advanced capitalist countries and avoid Soviet autarky. So I believe Trotsky would have a better trade policy than Stalin (I never said Stalin didn't engage in trade at all with the West).

Stalin initially persecuted the Church, and then formed an alliance of convenience with it. Trotsky (especially because he's an atheist Jew) won't bother doing that.

Stalin was a vicious anti-Semite, despite official Soviet pronouncements against anti-Semitism. He purged all the Jewish Old Bolsheviks (granted he purged all the Old Bolsheviks full stop), he sacked Maxim Litvinov and purged the Soviet Ministry of Jews to negotiate the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Hitler, and he was gearing up for a Second Holocaust with the Doctor's Plot. That won't occur here.

@Obergruppenführer Smith

Trotsky isn't a bungler like Stalin. Also if you read the Program of the Joint Opposition, the Platform of the Left Opposition, the Revolution Betrayed, etc, you will find that Trotsky had very detailed and pre-planned strategies for industrialisation and collectivisation. That's an immediate improvement over Stalin's hodge-podge, zig-zagging mess, which means many fewer deaths.

And yes, I believe Trotsky would have a better trade policy than Stalin. For one, he is not an extreme paranoid like Stalin, and he doesn't believe in Socialism in One Country.
 
And yes, I believe Trotsky would have a better trade policy than Stalin. For one, he is not an extreme paranoid like Stalin, and he doesn't believe in Socialism in One Country.

Except Socialism in One Country was why the Soviets were able to be reluctantly allowed into the world trade system, thus resulting in vast capital acquisitions that helped with industrialization. What sane American/German/Swiss industrialist would have cooperated with Trotsky at the helm?
 
Except Socialism in One Country was why the Soviets were able to be reluctantly allowed into the world trade system, thus resulting in vast capital acquisitions that helped with industrialization. What sane American/German/Swiss industrialist would have cooperated with Trotsky at the helm?

Why not? I don't believe he would be madly invading or inciting revolutions in neighbouring countries; he (and Lenin) understood the critical need for the Soviet Union to rebuild and recover. Trotsky was against Socialism in One Country due to its autarky and abandonment of global working-class solidarity (not necessarily revolutionary) as evidenced by the abolition of the Comintern, the MR-Pact, etc.
 

Deleted member 94680

I thought Permanent Revolution referred to keeping Russia in a state of permanent revolution? As in the activity, watchfulness, aggression and energy required in the early days of '17-'19?
 
Except Socialism in One Country was why the Soviets were able to be reluctantly allowed into the world trade system, thus resulting in vast capital acquisitions that helped with industrialization. What sane American/German/Swiss industrialist would have cooperated with Trotsky at the helm?
International trade had very little to do with the rapid industrialisation of the Soviet Union. The sad irony of forced collectivisation was that hundreds of thousands of peasants fled the rural areas to the cities and towns boosting the consumption of goods, which provided the capital needed to fund growth, and providing the urban workforce needed to run new industries that the five year plans were actually quite effective in establishing with Soviet technical expertise. There would be Red Scares regardless of who was in power in the Soviet Union. Maybe Trotsky in power would lead to worse trade deals, maybe he would have the same 'luck' as Stalin, but international trade would still occur if western capitalists felt they could make money.
 
The Soviet Union's industrialization was based on imported machinery, expertise, and entire factories from the US, Germany, and Switzerland. You would be denying historical fact with such a statement.
I take my statement from Prof. Robert C. Allen's 'A Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution' which is a summary of aspects of his book 'Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution'. This from his conclusion of why there was rapid industrialisation and why collectivisation and international technical expertise wasn't necessary for economic growth:

"First, the New Economic Policy, which involved the preservation of peasant farming and a market relationship between town and country, was a conducive framework for rapid industrialization. Collectivization made little additional contribution to this system of organization. Second, the autarchic development of the producer goods sector was a viable source of new capital equipment. Exporting wheat and importing machinery--i.e. following comparative advantage--was not necessary for rapid growth. Third, the central planning of firm output in conjunction with the soft budget constraint was effective in mobilizing otherwise unemployed labour. This additional employment made a significant contribution to output as well as distributing consumption widely."

Suffice to say, it's not denying fact to suggest that importing machinery was not a necessity to rapid industrialisation. I'm sure it helped facilitate aspects of that industrialisation however at the crux of it growth was enabled by the urbanisation of the rural population.
 
Yes Russian would still be the lingua franca of the USSR, but Stalin's Russification campaigns would not be imposed by Trotsky.
I'm not quite sure that making Russian a compulsory language (and only in 1938) is evidence of Russification. Most of the rest of the Russification campaign was during and after WWII, under very different circumstances.
Though I imagine that under Trotsky the Latinisation campaign would continue and might even be attempted on Russian.

I do believe the Holodomor was a targeted racialist campaign against Ukrainians, on top of the other mass deaths from Stalinist administrative bungling during collectivisation.
This opinion is difficult to reconcile with the fact that nearly the same policies were followed in the other major grain growing areas of the USSR, like for example in the Don and Kuban areas (the former had a Russian majority, the latter a slight Ukrainian plurality but it was hardly a center of Ukrainian nationalism and there is no evidence that Russians did not starve in this area).

Stalin initially persecuted the Church, and then formed an alliance of convenience with it. Trotsky (especially because he's an atheist Jew) won't bother doing that.
Initially is a strange term for 17 years, and alliance is a strange term for "barely tolerated it". What exactly was the Church getting from this alliance except the end of persecution. By this logic, the main religious group in every country which doesn't prosecute it is allied with that country's government.
Also, Stalin only ended the persecution of the church because of the German invasion. And if there is a German invasion in this timeline, Trotsky (if he's as pragmatic as you portray him) might well decide to do the same, rather than allow the Germans to score a propaganda coup by doing it themselves.

Stalin was a vicious anti-Semite, despite official Soviet pronouncements against anti-Semitism. He purged all the Jewish Old Bolsheviks (granted he purged all the Old Bolsheviks full stop), he sacked Maxim Litvinov and purged the Soviet Ministry of Jews to negotiate the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Hitler, and he was gearing up for a Second Holocaust with the Doctor's Plot. That won't occur here.
I would hardly want to defend Stalin, but I have some doubts that a vicious anti-Semite would keep a Jew as one of his closes allies. As you yourself noted, practically all the Old Bolsheviks were purged, regardless of their ethnicity. It can also be argued that the persecution of Judaism was never as severe in the USSR under Stalin as the Russian Orthodox Church. It seems that Stalin was quite ready to use the Jews when they were useful to him (like during WWII) and abandoned when they were not (after Litvinov's failure to secure cooperation with France and UK and after Israel allied with the Western Camp).

But I concede that Trotsky would probably not do any of those things.
 
The issue here is that
I take my statement from Prof. Robert C. Allen's 'A Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution' which is a summary of aspects of his book 'Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution'. This from his conclusion of why there was rapid industrialisation and why collectivisation and international technical expertise wasn't necessary for economic growth:

.......

Suffice to say, it's not denying fact to suggest that importing machinery was not a necessity to rapid industrialisation. I'm sure it helped facilitate aspects of that industrialisation however at the crux of it growth was enabled by the urbanisation of the rural population.

The issue with Allen's conclusion is that he is equaling "growth of light industry" as "industrial revolution". Notwithstanding the issues with his numbers which have not been thoroughly vented by others, Allen's focus in his book was on general living standards without taking into consideration the necessity of a massive heavy industry drive that required the kind of Stalinist (and inevitably Trotskyist) drive which resulted in inefficiencies throughout the system.

In other words, yes USSR did not need imported machinery to do "simple" industrialization. However the tractor and automotive factories which were the vanguard of heavy industry and supporter of agriculture could not have been built within the USSR without external help. I cannot see Trotsky pulling off Stalin's result in the heavy industry area, and that would have grave consequences.
 
The issue with Allen's conclusion is that he is equaling "growth of light industry" as "industrial revolution". Notwithstanding the issues with his numbers which have not been thoroughly vented by others, Allen's focus in his book was on general living standards without taking into consideration the necessity of a massive heavy industry drive that required the kind of Stalinist (and inevitably Trotskyist) drive which resulted in inefficiencies throughout the system.

In other words, yes USSR did not need imported machinery to do "simple" industrialization. However the tractor and automotive factories which were the vanguard of heavy industry and supporter of agriculture could not have been built within the USSR without external help. I cannot see Trotsky pulling off Stalin's result in the heavy industry area, and that would have grave consequences.
Actually, Allen consistently talks about the five year plans' investment in heavy industry as an aspect which is successful and pays off. So, for Allen, it's not a 'growth in light industry' as you suggest but rather an increase in urban consumption of goods coupled with an increase in the output of production due to the successes of heavy industrialisation. However, I would welcome alternative perspectives. What have you read that criticises Allen's work?

I have thoughts about your idea that Trotsky would be unable to have the same industrialisation impact as Stalin, namely due to Trotsky and his supporters identifying the scissors crisis as early as 1923 and so we might not see such a rapid growth but it would be more consistent from an earlier period and without as many needless deaths. However, I have to go to work so I probably won't reply or delve into the matter in any depth.
 

Deleted member 94680

The issue with Allen's conclusion is that he is equaling "growth of light industry" as "industrial revolution". Notwithstanding the issues with his numbers which have not been thoroughly vented by others, Allen's focus in his book was on general living standards without taking into consideration the necessity of a massive heavy industry drive that required the kind of Stalinist (and inevitably Trotskyist) drive which resulted in inefficiencies throughout the system.

I am by no means an expert on industrialisation. But, I would have thought the fact that factories had to be imported would point to there being issues with the USSR's "home grown" heavy industry.


In other words, yes USSR did not need imported machinery to do "simple" industrialization. However the tractor and automotive factories which were the vanguard of heavy industry and supporter of agriculture could not have been built within the USSR without external help.

This would seem to be self-evident and until the work quoted, a well accepted fact.

I cannot see Trotsky pulling off Stalin's result in the heavy industry area, and that would have grave consequences.

I am, however, not so sure about this. Trotsky, although in the end outmanoeuvred and isolated due to his ideological intransigence, was for a large part of his career effectively a pragmatist. He signed off on Brest-Litovsk, recruited former Tsarist officers into the Red Army and of course switched from the Mensheviks to the Bolsheviks. There might well be a longer 'fallow period' of Soviet industrialisation, but I believe Trotsky would realise the way out of it would be to import the necessary materials and advisors and adjust his image accordingly (cosmetically, at least).
 
I guess we can summarize things as the following: Economically, Trotsky is less likely to bungle things up like Stalin, but it is debatable if he could get as much heavy industry imports as his victorious rival.
 
This video shows a scenarioTrotsky's USSR

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- State Atheism and anti-clerical persecution would continue, and there would be no de-facto alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church like under Stalinism.

Not to forget avoiding Stalin's conservatism on gender roles and gay rights.

In 1933, Stalin outlawed homosexuality which had been legalized after the communist revolution and was regarded as a "mere" mental disease by the Soviet Union during the 20s. Also, Stalin (along with his clericalism and his undeniable russification policy) gradually made divorcing harder and generally took back women's emancipation.

Here a question: would Trotsky have allowed other parties than the communist own to take part in elections, like he claimed in his book The Revolution Betrayed?
Or would he order to shoot on anti-authoritarian leftists like he did at Kronstadt?
 
Here a question: would Trotsky have allowed other parties than the communist own to take part in elections, like he claimed in his book The Revolution Betrayed?
Or would he order to shoot on anti-authoritarian leftists like he did at Kronstadt?

That's a good question. While Trotsky definitely had some strong authoritarian tendencies (i.e. Kronstadt), he also relished the to-and-fro the Petrograd Soviet debates, the back-and-forth arguing of the intra-Party and Commitee arguments, haranguing and exchanging words (not just one way) with his political rivals in the press and speeches, etc. Trotsky actually loved that stuff, (unlike Stalin with his crabby personality that hated all dissent). It's almost a symptom of Trotsky's well-publicised arrogance that I don't think he would try to outlaw dissension in the Soviet Union - because he loved debating and verbally castigating his detractors that much. Just have a read of John Reed's recollections of Trotsky "imperiously" taking the podium time and time again at the Petrograd Soviet for the "thrill" of speechifying and continuously refuting the Provisional Govt, Mensheviks, and SRs (and yes even other wavering Bolsheviks like Zinoviev) - and he always let them make their points first before debating them point by point. The man got a real kick out of it.

Trotsky also wrote that he and Lenin were planning to lift the ban on factions within the Party. And he had neither the ability nor inclination to accumulate totalitarian, absolutist power over the Party that Stalin had IOTL.

While I can't be sure whether he'd allow other parties, I think rival factions within the Party - such as the Workers Opposition, Right Opposition, and Ultra-Leninists (i.e. OTL Stalinists) would actually be allowed to exist and campaign with a lot more freedom of action. Maybe these factions would end up essentially functioning as opposition parties in the Soviet body politic.
 
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